Tartarin of Tarascon eBook

In ballad-singing, as in cap-popping, Tartarin was
still the foremost. His superiority over his
fellow-townsmen consisted in his not having any one
song of his own, but in knowing the lot, the whole,
mind you! But —­ there’s a but
—­ it was the devil’s own work to get
him to sing them.

Surfeited early in life with his drawing-room successes,
our hero preferred by far burying himself in his hunting
story-books, or spending the evening at the club,
to making a personal exhibition before a Nimes piano
between a pair of home-made candles. These musical
parades seemed beneath him. Nevertheless, at whiles,
when there was a harmonic party at Bezuquet’s,
he would drop into the chemist’s shop, as if
by chance, and, after a deal of pressure, consent
to do the grand duo in Robert le Diable with old Madame
Bezuquet. Whoso never heard that never heard anything!
For my part, even if I lived a hundred years, I should
always see the mighty Tartarin solemnly stepping up
to the piano, setting his arms akimbo, working up
his tragic mien, and, beneath the green reflection
from the show-bottles in the window, trying to give
his pleasant visage the fierce and satanic expression
of Robert the Devil. Hardly would he fall into
position before the whole audience would be shuddering
with the foreboding that something uncommon was at
hand. After a hush, old Madame Bezuquet would
commence to her own accompaniment:

“Robert, my love is thine!
To thee I my faith did plight,
Thou seest my affright, —­
Mercy for thine own sake,
And mercy for mine!”

In an undertone she would add: “Now, then,
Tartarin!” Whereupon Tartarin of Tarascon, with
crooked arms, clenched fists, and quivering nostrils,
would roar three times in a formidable voice, rolling
like a thunderclap in the bowels of the instrument:

“No! no! no!” which, like the thorough
southerner he was, he pronounced nasally as “Naw!
naw! naw!” Then would old Madame Bezuquet again
sing:

“Mercy for thine own sake,
And mercy for mine!”

“Naw! naw! naw!” bellowed Tartarin at
his loudest, and there the gem ended.

Not long, you see; but it was so handsomely voiced
forth, so clearly gesticulated, and so diabolical,
that a tremor of terror overran the chemist’s
shop, and the “Naw! naw! naw!” would be
encored several times running.

Upon this Tartarin would sponge his brow, smile on
the ladies, wink to the sterner sex, and withdraw
upon his triumph to go remark at the club with a trifling,
offhand air:

“I have just come from the Bezuquets’,
where I was forced to sing ’em the duo from
Robert le Diable.”

The cream of the joke was that he really believed
it!

IV.
“They!”

Chiefly to the account of these diverse talents did
Tartarin owe his lofty position in the town of Tarascon.
Talking of captivating, though, this deuce of a fellow
knew how to ensnare everybody. Why, the army,
at Tarascon, was for Tartarin. The brave commandant,
Bravida, honorary captain retired —­ in the
Military Clothing Factory Department —­
called him a game fellow; and you may well admit that
the warrior knew all about game fellows, he played
such a capital knife and fork on game of all kinds.